UK Softball falls 1-0 to Cal

Chanda shines, but not enough to lift Cats over Bears.

The first run scored in the California-Kentucky super regional series was by California. A home run over the center field wall by Cal’s Frani Echavarria put the Golden Bears on the board for the first time in the bottom of the fourth inning, and it would turn out to be the last one as well as California defeats the Kentucky softball team by a tally of 1-0 in front of a school record 1,717 fans at a very loud UK softball complex.

Besides that one home run, Chanda Bell, the UK pitcher pitched an amazing and complete game. Every time UK had their back against the wall and it looked like Cal was going to have a big inning, Bell fought her way back and got out of the inning with minimal damage. In each of the opening innings she fought runners on base to get out of the inning scoreless and she dialed in early and never looked back. She recorded eight strikeouts in six innings. Bell kept UK in the ballgame throughout the whole game, seemingly feeding off the crowd’s energy. When facing base runners in scoring position in the first two innings, she was not fazed and in both cases ended the innings with two pairs of strikeouts. It was a heroic effort by Bell.

The Cats weren’t completely without hope though, despite Jolene Henderson only allowing one hit on the day, in the top of the third the Cats had as good as any chance to score, with Alice O-Brien on board with a four pitch walk and advanced to third when Megan Yocke hit a two-out single into shallow left and just like that UK had runners on the corners with two outs, but they wouldn’t score.

Kara Dill lined a ball dead down the third base line that would send O-Brien home, but in what would be the defensive play of the day, Cal third basemen, Jace Williams made a spectacular snag and ended the inning, literally sucking the air out of the complex.

In the very next inning is when Echavarria sent a solo-shot home run for the first and only score of the game, but it looked as if Kentucky would score some late game heroics again as they did against Michigan.

With Megan Aull, Emily Jolly, Annie Rowlands and Brittany Cerventes all sent line drives deep into the outfield in the last ditch effort for the Cats to pull off the win, but the Cal defenders were ready and in perfect position every time to nab the fly balls and just like that, it was over for the Cats and Cal took the three game series to 1-0.

Luckily, they do have another chance. With a win tomorrow at 1 p.m ET at the UK softball complex they tie the best of three series 1-1, which means a tie breaker will be played at 3:30 p.m ET. Both games are on ESPN.

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